 Please join in a moment of centering silence so we can be fully present with each other this morning. And now let's get musically present with each other by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. Would you say one more time? I thought we should hear that twice. Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to another fine Sunday here at First Unitarian Society where independent thinkers gather in a safe, nurturing environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance as we try to make a difference in this world. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud but slightly imperfect member of this congregation. And I'd like to extend a special welcome to any guests, visitors, and newcomers. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find that it's a special place. And we invite you to join us for the fellowship hour right after the service. And speaking of the service, this will be a perfect time for you to silence all those pesky electronic devices because you simply will not need them during the service. And this goes for those of you watching or listening at home as well. And if you're accompanied today by a youngster, and I see many of you are, and you think that youngster might enjoy the service from a more private space. We have a couple alternatives for you. One is our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium. And then we have some comfortable seats right outside the doorway in the commons. And we do have some youngsters here because we've got child dedications a little bit later on, so we're looking forward to that. And I know all of you are as well. Today's service is brought to us, as it always is, by a wonderful group of people whom we call volunteers. These are wonderful folks who are offering their time and energy so that we can enjoy the service. And they deserve a few warm thoughts from the rest of us. So warm thoughts go to Mark Schultz, who's operating the sound system this morning. Warm thoughts go to Ann Smiley, who is serving as our lay minister. And to Carol Angel, who is serving as our greeter, whom you met upstairs as you walked in today. Vivian Littlefield, Doug Hill, Wally Brinkman, and Ron Cook are serving as our much appreciated ushers to deal with this unruly crowd. And the hospitality and coffee are hosted by Jean Hills. Just one announcement. Does anybody know how many days until cabaret? Yes! You win the prize. I have no idea what it is, but you win the prize, because in 47 days on Friday, May 20, we're going to Italy. And you won't need your passport or an airline ticket. You will need some money, because we have an Italian theme for cabaret, our annual fundraising auction and party, one of the most enjoyable, exciting events in the FUS social calendar. So mark your calendar for Friday evening, May 20. As we go to Italy, we're going to have a gourmet Italian dinner. We're going to have some wonderful Italian music. The auction items, though, will not be Italian. They'll be Unitarian. And they come from you and your fellow congregational members. So if you would like to help with the planning of cabaret, if you'd like to donate an item for the auction, contact Rhiannon on the FUS staff or go to the FUS website. And those of you who have participated in the past and selected to connect, we're combining that with cabaret this year. So there's an opportunity to engage in that aspect of a party and a big fundraiser. You can start buying your tickets to cabaret, because you don't want to be left out from this trip to Italy. You can start buying your tickets next weekend after the services. And speaking of the services, we're ready for this one. So please, sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I know it will touch your heart, stir your spirit, and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here. And now we're ready for the harpsichord. You who are brokenhearted, who woke today with the winds of despair whistling through your mind, welcome and come in. You who are brave but wounded, limping through life and hurting with every step, come in. You who are fearful, who live with shadows hovering over your shoulders, come in. This place is sanctuary and it is for you. You who are filled with happiness, whose abundance overflows, come in. You who walk through your world with lightness and grace, who awoke this morning with strength and hope, you who have everything to give, come in. This place is your calling, a riverbank to channel the sweet waters of your life, the place where you are called by the world's need. Here we offer in love, here we receive in gratitude, here we make a circle from the great gifts of breath, attention and purpose, welcome and come in. And if you will rise now in body or spirit to join together in our chalice lighting affirmation that is printed in your order of service, may the light of this chalice give light and warmth to our community when we are joyful and when we despair and may we feel the warmth spread from our circle to wider and wider circles until all know they belong to the one circle of life. And before we join together in song, if you'll take a moment to turn and greet your neighbor. Please be seated. Today we continue our service with a precious moment in any congregation's life, the right of dedication. This is a time when we who are gathered here in this meeting house have the privilege to welcome three young children into our family and religious community. Today it is our cherished assignment to welcome and pledge our care to Daphne Ruth Aiden Carter, Henry Joseph Gember Jacobson and Clara Reese-Grenke. Today all of us gathered here are more than casual witnesses to life's gifts and nature's marvelous creations. We all are being invited to share the joy which these parents take in their child and to enter more fully into their lives. I believe in my heart that I speak for all of us when I say we are grateful for this privilege. We continue with this time-honored ritual because these children are our delight. By them we are reminded of life's small joys and wisdoms. They are the heirs of the work that we have done and are doing, the next generation unto whom the torch of our tradition shall pass. They are the yet unwritten chapter in our story. We promise them and their parents our love and support, a listening ear and a helping hand in times of trial. We pledge to them a community of openness, a place where their beliefs, their doubts and their questions will be received with gentleness and respect, a place of challenge where we continue to point to the ever-open road of possibility. We pledge to give them roots, a tradition to pass on and a place to come home to. So if the congregation will rise as our parents come forward with their child, we are gonna join together in the pledge that is in your order of service for the gift of childhood. You don't have it, do you? Do you have the pledge? Some of you do, you got it? Okay, say it along with me then. I was feeling kind of alone there for a minute. For the gift of childhood, there we go. Whose innocence, laughter and curiosity bring hope, joy and new understanding into our lives. We lift thankful hearts. We welcome Daphne, Henry and Clara into this spiritual community and extend to their parents our love and support in the joys and challenges of caregiving. As these children grow, we will share with them our insights, our values and our dreams that they may enjoy the rich benefits of our religious heritage. Thank you, please be seated. And now to those who stand with their child before us, Vicki Eiden and Dale Carter, Emily and Erin Gember Jacobsen, Michael and Kimberly Granke. As caregivers, it is your privilege and obligation to provide an environment both of security and challenge in which these young souls who you bring before us today will grow. Do you commit yourself to promote their physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing? Will you respect as well as protect this child and bestow your love as a free and unmerited gift? And do you also reaffirm your commitment to support and care for one another as partners in life and in parenting? If so, please say we do. Thank you. There are several among us today who bear a special relationship to one of these children. If you will please stand as your names are read. With Daphne, our big sister Vivian, grandmother Carrie May Eiden, guide parents Joy and Jerry Ebert and watching live stream from Texas, grandparents Bill and Cheryl Carter. So everybody wave. With Henry, our grandparents Steve and Karen and Lynn and Jim and remain standing. I've got a question for you all too. And with Clara, our sponsors Josh Kufal and Amanda Meredith, Grant, Randy and Kim Granke, Rick and Kathy Peters and Kristen Peters and anyone else who's here with Clara. All right. So to all of you I now ask, do you take upon yourselves the privilege and responsibility to nurture, defend and support the inherent worth and dignity of this child to whom you bear a special relationship? Will you encourage them to always seek the truth? Will you help them to grow in love for the larger human family, to love and respect the larger community of life to which we all belong? If so, please make the sacred promise by responding, we will. Thank you, please be seated. In the act of dedication, we use the symbolism of water as a sign of our common heritage. There is no suggestion here of a washing away of inherited sin. These children came into the world with the limitations natural to our species, but they arrived innocent. Water here stands for vitality. It is the essence of life, the foundation of being. Its use here reminds us of our common bond with all embracing, ever-sustaining nature. This is also the water of our community, the waters of the world, gathered at our annual water communion service. Its use here reminds us of the ever-sustaining and embracing love of community. Emily and Erin name this child. Henry Joseph Gamber Jacobson. Henry Joseph Gamber Jacobson, we dedicate you in the name of truth, the promise of love, and the fellowship of this society. May you be granted clarity of thought, integrity of speech, and a compassionate heart. Vicki and Dale name this child. Daphne Ruth Eiden Carter, we dedicate you in the name of truth, the promise of love, and the fellowship of this society. May you be granted clarity of thought, integrity of speech, and a compassionate heart. Michael and Kimberly name this child. Clara Reese-Grenke, we dedicate you in the name of truth, the promise of love, and the fellowship of this society. May you be granted clarity of thought, integrity of speech, and a compassionate heart. As a token of their dedication, we give to Daphne, Henry, and Clara a rosebud, fragrant symbol of beauty, promise, and love. These roses have no thorns. Symbolizing the better world, we would give our children if it were in our power. And while we know that the world is not altogether as lovely as these rosebuds, we hope that Daphne, Henry, and Clara will learn to recognize the beauty and the goodness which does exist, and that they will grow in wisdom and compassion, adding their own beauty to the world. Henry, Daphne, you're gonna eat it, and Clara. As this flower unfolds in all its natural beauty, so may your lives unfold. Also as a remembrance of their dedication, we give to each child a blanket, a gift from the members of our shawl ministry program. When you see this blanket, may you remember the warmth, the support, and the love of this community for you and your family. We have dedicated these children today. May we also dedicate ourselves. As we contemplate the miracle of new life, as we renew in our hearts a sense of wonder and joy, may we be stirred to a fresh awareness of the sacredness of life and of the divine promise of childhood. May we pledge to build a community in which our children will grow surrounded by beauty, embraced by love, and cradled in the arms of peace. May we pass on the light of compassion and courage, and may that light burn brightly within us all. If you will join me in welcoming our children. And now as we rise in body or spirit for our next Tim, number 338, and any kids who are here with us can go off to classes. Please be seated. Our reading today from Elizabeth Gilbert. Long ago when I was in my insecure 20s, I met a clever, independent, creative, and powerful woman in her mid 70s who offered me a superb piece of life wisdom. She said, we all spend our 20s and 30s trying so hard to be perfect because we're so worried what people will think of us. Then we get into our 40s and 50s. We finally start to be free because we decide that we don't really give a darn what anyone thinks of us. But you won't be completely free until you reach your 60s and 70s when you finally realize this liberating truth. Nobody was ever thinking about you anyhow. They aren't, they weren't, they never were. People are mostly just thinking about themselves. People don't have time to worry about what you're doing or how well you're doing it because they're all caught up in their own dramas. People's attention may be drawn to you for a moment if you succeed or fail spectacularly. But that attention will soon revert right back to where it has always been on themselves. While it may seem lonely and horrible at first to imagine that you aren't anyone else's first order of business, there's also a great release to be found in this idea. You are free because everyone is too busy fussing over themselves to worry all that much about you. Go be whomever you want to be. Do whatever you want to do. Pursue whatever fascinates you and brings you to life. Create whatever you want to create and let it be stupendously imperfect because it's exceedingly likely that no one will even notice. And that is awesome. Thank you, Trevor. One of my favorite British comedies is a show called Keeping Up Appearances. It features Mrs. Hyacinth Bouquet, spelled B-U-C-K-E-T. But it is Bouquet, a feisty woman who lives to impress. And she has no patience for people who pretend to be superior because as she says, that makes it so much harder for those of us who really are. A shirt of her own eminence, she spends her days trying to make sure that everyone else is aware of it too. Her inferior sisters, Rose and Daisy, along with Daisy's undershirt, wearing beer, drinking, husband, Anzlo, are a challenge. But she is always willing to talk about her rich sister, Violet, who married the turf accountant and has a new Mercedes and a house big enough for a sauna and room for a pony. She wonders why her roses aren't as big as those next door and worries that the guests at her candlelight suppers won't be impressed. Episode after episode shows Hyacinth's determination to climb the social ladder in spite of her family's working class connections all to the constant chagrin of Richard, her long-suffering husband. I wonder sometimes at the appeal of this show and why I find it absolutely hysterical. I watch the episodes over and over and I crack up every time Hyacinth's snobbery leads her to ruin. Being stuck in the back of a truck where she's hiding because she didn't want the important church ladies to know she was waiting outside a pub or falling in a river after trying to host the vicar at an impressive waterside picnic with riparian entertainment. One reason I think it resonates so is that we live in a culture of comparison. We do it all the time. Someone drives their new car to work and suddenly our car that we loved a minute ago seems old, dented, and tired. The people next door have a new living room set delivered and our house now needs a complete overhaul. And it isn't just things that we compare. We compare jobs, promotions, clothes, kids. We even compare ourselves against our own expectations and dreams and most of the time we find that we don't measure up. Paul Angoni, author of a book called 101 Secrets for Your Twenties calls comparison the smallpox of the millennial generation. He writes, what's obsessive comparison disorder you ask? It's the new OCD I've coined to describe our compulsion to constantly compare ourselves with others, producing unwanted thoughts and feelings that drive us into depression, consumption, anxiety, and all around discontent. It encourages us to stay up late on Facebook peering through all 348 pictures of our friends, my life is better than yours album. And then it sends us to bed wondering why we suddenly feel so anxious. Obsessively comparing yourself to others, becoming more and more frustrated that your life doesn't look like theirs is the absolute most effective way to take your crisis to unhealthy eating raw cookie dough with a serving spoon levels. Like having to run outside to light up a cigarette, our comparison addiction is uncontrollable and it is killing us. I would add that this disorder isn't limited to any one generation and social media is not the only culprit. We live in a society in which we measure ourselves against other people who are measuring themselves against other people and there is no objective measure for how high is enough. We always need to stretch just a little more in hopes of reaching the ever changing goal. And what are we really hoping for in all of this? Contentment. We don't really want to live our lives day after day obsessively comparing ourselves to the achievements and the status of others. We want contentment. To be content with who we are and what we have and where our lives are in this moment. To know that we belong, to know that we are enough exactly as we are. When comparison isn't involved, we are content. But once we start measuring our lives against others, against what we could have, against what we think we should have, what we have disappears from our sight and what we seem to lack take center stage. I will admit that I have had to stop watching HGTV at the gym. At first it was great fun. Seeing all these shows with gorgeous renovation ideas, big beautiful kitchens, professionally designed living rooms that open up onto a perfectly manicured lawn. Kids' rooms that are organized and clean and each decorating item in exactly the right spot. But I had to stop. Not because the shows did anything wrong but because the messages in my head got ugly. And I became overly critical of our less than beautiful home whose current decorating style I describe as somewhere between fraternity house meets toys are us with a little bit of petting zoo thrown in for good measure. It is not pretty. It is not shiny. And nothing in it is perfectly manicured. But it's home. And it's filled with two boys who love life, two parents trying really hard and two dogs who appear to be some combination of Labrador and Moose. It is not perfect, but it's home. Our chronic concern about how we measure up is surely not enriching our lives or our relationships. Rather than appreciating people or ourselves for their own unique qualities, our thoughts raised to assess whether our qualities are enough or maybe better than theirs. Andy Stanley, senior pastor at North Point Community Church, calls living it in the land of Ur. We are daily engaging, he says, in a lose, lose activity. And we may not even realize how destructive it is. Being rich or or smart or or funny or may feel like a short term win. But for ourselves, our families and our relationships, comparison is a game with no winners. Among other things, comparison has been famously described as the thief of joy, an act of violence against the self and the surest route to breeding jealousy. Even Homer weighed in. Nothing shall I, while sane, compare with a friend. Can I be satisfied? Am I okay? Do I measure up? The answer is yes. Yes, we can be satisfied. Yes, we are okay. And yes, we do measure up just fine. The poet Martin Price wrote this piece called Comparing Yourself to Others. I find it staggering how often people compare themselves to others, people who in my eyes are already pretty fantastic, looking at other pretty fantastic people and seeing all the types of fantastic that they are not or at least not yet. Sometimes I find myself daydreaming about corrective eye surgery, not because I am a corrective eye surgeon, but because too many people have warped vision that makes the fantastic in the people around them shine and blurs the fantastic in themselves. Of course, people are different. Some are really funny and some are really handsome. Some are really clever, some are really friendly. Some are really lucky and that they tick multiple boxes. But I think the really lucky ones are the content ones that may not tick any box, but also don't mind being average because that's all anyone is in comparison to everyone else. That's how averages work. I once heard a friend say that the only time you should compare yourself to another is to make sure that they have enough. But I put it in Google and I can't find who said it, so either I should write down quotes more often or my friends understand the world on a much deeper level or I understand the world on a much deeper level, but I think it's the first one and I need to write down quotes more often. You have to remember that if everyone compared themselves to others too much, then nobody would do anything because they would all think somebody else could do it better or quicker so nobody after Oscar Peterson would play piano, nobody after Timothy Dalton would play James Bond and nobody after Michael Johnson would run 400 meters or the 200 meters or the four by 400 meters apart from the other three people on his team. And that last line I think is crucial apart from the other three people on his team. How do we move from a culture of comparison to a culture of contentment? We get there, I think, by creating a culture of compassion within immunity. But before we get there, we have to name a pervasive illusion that lives among us, and that is the illusion of perfection. All too often, our minds fool us into thinking that we can and in fact should be other than we are. Perfectionism is defined as the compulsive need to achieve and accomplish one's goals with no allowance for falling short of one's ideals. Yet we know that if we were perfect, we wouldn't be human. Warm breathing human life is a constantly unfolding wonder, not a static state of flawless sameness. Being alive involves struggle and despair as well as glory and joy. To demand perfection is to turn our backs on real life, the full range of human experience. Why, when we know that there's no such thing as perfect, do most of us spend an incredible amount of time and energy trying to be everything to everyone? Asks the writer and researcher, Brene Brown. Is it really that we admire perfection? No. The truth is that we are actually drawn to people who are real and down to earth. We love authenticity and we know that all life, everybody's life is messy and imperfect. So if the perfect home and the perfect job and the perfect person and the perfect kid, if all of that is illusion, what is reality? The reality is that we are all in this together. We need to transform our relationships with one another and with ourselves from comparison to compassion. And we do this by recognizing our inherent interconnectedness. According to the Centers for Disease Control, a sense of belonging and being connected are crucial to our mental health. Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist, argued that needs for individual growth and happiness cannot be met without first satisfying the more basic need for human connection. Without bonds of love and affection with others, he said, we cannot go on to achieve our full potential as human beings. Similarly, psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut proposed that belonging is a core need of the self. Belonging is the feeling of being human among humans, a feeling that allows us to feel connected to others. If we can compassionately remind ourselves in moments of falling down that failure is part of the shared human experience, then that moment becomes one of togetherness rather than isolation. When our troubled, painful experiences are framed by the recognition that countless others have undergone similar hardships, the blow is softened, the pain still hurts, but it doesn't become compounded by feelings of separation. We need to call out and name the voices in our culture that tell us to notice how others have more, are more, do more, strive more than we do and say enough. Enough with the comparison because we know we are enough. All of us are. Our connections with one another help us to move from comparison to contentment with compassion being the key. We are groomed to believe that the best way to live is looking out for our own self-interest, but in reality, lasting satisfaction rarely accompanies that approach. What if instead of looking at others as a measure of our own value, we looked at them simply to appreciate and maybe even celebrate their successes? What if instead of racing against them, we viewed ourselves as members of a team, racing alongside each of us trying to do our best? It's compassion. Life is satisfying when we celebrate and cry together, genuinely talking and opening ourselves to one another and to the whole person with all of their beauty and all of their broken places that we may never see standing right in front of us. When you feel the obsessive comparison disorder welling up within you, you don't have to let it steal your joy. Try these words instead. I'm happy for you. When I say I'm happy for you, I am realizing that your joy, your good fortune, is not about me. It's about you. And your joy, your new thing, your child's amazing achievement does not take away that reality that we are all in this together and with compassion for myself and for all the other imperfect and messy beings that I share life with. I can realize that I am enough. I'm content. I'm okay. You are enough. You can be content. And we are okay. So these last words are from a prayer written by my colleague, Mark Bellatini. Let's set it all down, you and me. The disappointments little in large. The frustrations. Let's open our fists and drop them. The useless waiting. The obsession with what we cannot have. The focus on foolish things. The pinwheeling worry which wears us out. The fretting. Let's throw them down. The comparisons of ourselves with others. The competition as if domination was the best name we could give to the holy. The cynical assumptions. The unspoken shelved anger. Let's toss them. The inarticulate suspicions. The self-doubt. The preemptive self-hatred. The numbing bouts of self-pity. Let's sink them all like stones. Let's drop them like hot rocks into a cool pond. And when they're gone, let's lay back gently and float. Float on the calm surface of enough. Let's be supported in the still cradle of the world. Messy, imperfect, beautiful, and waiting for us. And I now invite you into the giving and receiving of today's offering. You'll see in your order of service that it is shared with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. You can find out more about them at the table outside the commons. And we thank you for your generosity. We join together each week a community who gathers with joys and sorrows written on our hearts. And we are going to join together now in a moment of silence as we bring into this space all the unspoken joys and sorrows that are living here among us. Here in this place of peace may we find hope. Here in this place of connection may we find life-giving community. Here in this place of rest may we let the unrest of our hearts turn us toward justice. Here in this space made sacred by memories of connection may we feel ourselves part of the new that grows from the old in the spiraling unity of our years. And if you will rise now in body or spirit to join in our closing hymn number 151 As we take our leave before we gather together again may each of us bring happiness into the life of another. May we each be surprised by the gifts that surround us and by the light the goodness the love that flows from within us. And may we remain together in spirit until we meet again. Blessed be go in peace and please be seated for the postlude.